Reconstruction
by MrsTater
Summary: After the Battle of New York, everyone has some rebuilding to do, including the people who saved the city.


_**A/N: I've fallen in love with the Bruce/Natasha pairing and **_**Age of Ultron **_**hasn't even been released yet! I knew once I see it I won't be able to resist writing fic, so I thought I'd try my hand at writing these characters with a little post-**_**Avengers one-shot**_**. Hope you guys like it, and I'd love to know if you do. **_

**Reconstruction**

New York has barely begun to rebuild, but the floor in Stark Tower-_Avengers _Tower, they're calling it now-is repaired.

Bruce remarks on this when Agent Romanoff drops in to check how he's settling in-to _check up on him_, more likely-a few days after the battle, and she responds with a quirked eyebrow.

"Are you really surprised Tony can get a major renovation done while the rest of the city's still sifting through the rubble?"

His hands go into the pockets of his slacks as his gaze drifts over her shoulder, out the wall of newly re-installed windows, where the city spreads out in various stages of destruction, cranes towering between the skyscrapers. He tries not to think how much of that damage is his doing-_The last time I was in New York I kind of broke Harlem-_tries to remember this time it's from saving the city…saving the _world_.

That's the problem, though. He doesn't really remember.

In the glass, Bruce can just make out Agent Romanoff's reflection, watching him intently. He turns back to her, sees her full red lips curve upward, faintly. A more tentative smile than you'd normally associate with someone who saved the day, but he'll take what he can get. Sliding one hand from his pocket to tug at the hair above his collar, he returns it.

"Not surprised _Ms. Potts_ took care of everything efficiently."

_Pepper_. She insists he call her Pepper, but old habits. It's been so long since he's been on a first name basis with anyone. _Tony…Pepper…_

The line at the corner of Agent Romanoff's mouth deepens into a smirk. "You've worked out their dynamic already."

"Super spies aren't the only ones with finely honed observational skills, Agent Romanoff."

He's joking, of course, but he's learned people are as likely to laugh at his jokes as they are to shake hands with the Other Guy, and she's no exception.

"It doesn't require a super anything to get a read on Tony and Pepper, Dr. Banner."

They call him Bruce, he thinks as Agent Romanoff steps away from him. Briefly, he wonders if his joke offended more than her sense of humor. Then again, she's got much bigger reasons not to be a member of his fanclub. There actually is one, he learned, a delighted Tony barging in on him at an ungodly hour and shoving a tablet in his face. _A hundred bucks says you'll be the top Halloween costume this year. _Bruce guesses he doesn't mean a lab coat, glasses, and a mop of mad scientist hair.

Realizing he's been running his hand nervously through that hair, he drops it to his side, where it hangs awkwardly while he watches his feet shift his weight on the repaired floor, when her voice draws his attention back to her, standing just where it previously had a Loki-shaped imprint.

"You know, part of me is kind of disappointed in Pepper's efficiency. I wanted to see the spot again where you pounded Loki into the pavement." Through the curtain of her hair, he sees her cut a glance at him, then back again, shoulders tensing, hands balling into fists at her sides. "The other part of me wishes I'd been the one to do it."

"Believe me," Bruce says, "I'd be only too glad not to be capable of…" He gestures vaguely at the floor, though she's not looking at him. "…that." Moving swiftly right along, he says, "The way you outwitted him was pretty impressive in its own right."

"Well-I am the super spy."

She's the one joking now, and Bruce isn't laughing. He can't, noting the subtle change in her voice, huskier than usual. Agent Romanoff tricked the trickster, but not before Loki worked his mischief, delving deep and divulging parts of her Bruce can only presume she'd rather keep private. Secrets, after all, are a spy's MO. But these were more than professional, they were personal. His skin prickles with the same embarrassment as when he heard Loki utter them over the lab intercom on the helicarrier, and he wishes he hadn't made her relive the moment, too.

"I think it requires a super something to maintain your level of cool with someone saying stuff like that to you." He cringes; so much for not reminding her.

But Agent Romanoff looks at him now, head tilted as she considers him. "He said some pretty intense stuff about you, too, and it didn't send you into a rage."

"Not immediately, anyway."

For a moment, the incident hangs between them, almost tangible, like the cloud of dust pervading the city in the wake of the destruction.

"Agent Romanoff-"

Bruce catches himself, realizing as he takes a step toward her that closer proximity might not be the best way to apologize for attacking her. He digs his soles into the floor, clasps his hands together in front of him, in what he hopes is a non-threatening posture, though the tightness of his own grasp might belie that somewhat.

"About what happened on the helicarrier-"

He stops again, this time at the shake of her head.

"Really, Dr. Banner, apologies aren't necessary. I didn't take it personally. And you did warn me about enclosed spaces…"

Behind the lenses of his glasses, he narrows his eyes, putting his self-declared powers of observation to work scrutinizing her. He remembers very little from the incident, other than that it occurred, but he does remember the unmasked fear in her eyes at the moment when they both realized it was inevitable, even as she assured him she'd get him through it. The same fear he'd seen in Calcutta, when he slammed his fists on the table, a fraction of a second before she drew her gun.

"All the same," he says. "I do. Apologize."

"Accepted," she replies, with another of those slight smiles. Less tentative, Bruce thinks, than the first one, though it doesn't linger long. "Now that we've done the apologizing and the mutual admiration, let's just agree it was extremely satisfying to see Loki like that. No matter who put him there."

"Agreed-except for the Other Guy saw it."

"There's security footage." Tony picks up the conversation as he enters the room, striding directly for the bar. "Unless SHIELD confiscated it."

He shoots Agent Romanoff a testy look as he says this, as if she's the one responsible.

"Don't look at me," she protests, but Tony talks over her.

"JARVIS, do we have tape?"

"We do, sir. Shall I play it?"

"I don't really need to watch," Bruce begins-he's glimpsed enough shaky camera footage of the Hulk on the news-but that's not why he interrupts himself.

At the bar, Tony sets down the bottle of Scotch he'd been about to pour, grips the glass in his other hand.

"I guess that was always Coulson's thing, huh? Collecting all the evidence? Someone'll have to pick up the slack."

Bruce doesn't love the thought of SHIELD keeping tabs on him this way; if he's honest, part of him is glad for the current state of chaos at headquarters-such as it is, post-attack.

"Agent Hill has stepped up admirably," Romanoff replies, "but they're big shoes to fill."

Tony _hmms _and pours his Scotch. "Yeah. Well, she's tall.

"Now that the dust's starting to settle, now that there's time to think…He's absent from places we never knew he was present. We took him for granted."

Again, her voice thickens. Bruce is ashamed of his selfish thought about SHIELD when, for his new allies…colleagues…_friends_…Agent Coulson is a personal loss.

"Did you know he had a girlfriend?" Scotch drained, Tony pours himself another. "You want one?"

Agent Romanoff nods, whether to affirm she knows about the girlfriend or that she wants a drink is unclear, but he pours her one anyway. "The cellist in Portland."

"Bruce?"

"I don't…" He starts to answer he doesn't drink, but changes his mind. "I didn't really know him." What he says doesn't really matter, because Tony's talking.

"Audrey is her name. I only just found out he was Phil. Pepper's been trying to get in touch with her all morning. To see if she might want to play at the funeral or…even come at all…"

When Bruce first arrived at the tower after SHIELD cleared him to stay with Tony, Pepper hugged him, even though they'd just met, and thanked him for saving her insane boyfriend. No wonder she's attentive to an agent's girlfriend. His gaze drifts back to the spot on the floor.

Try as he might, there are some things even Tony Stark can't repair.

"She apparently hasn't gone to rehearsal since she got the call."

"What a call to get," Agent Romanoff says, eying her Scotch, but not drinking it.

Tony makes a sound of agreement as he swallows."Your boyfriend was killed by a character from Norse mythology."

"What the hell was he doing, going up against Loki alone, anyway?" Agent Romanoff says, a bitter edge creeping into her voice.

"The rest of you were all a little preoccupied with the Hulk." Bruce rubs the back of his neck, unable to look at them, though out of the corner of his eye he sees them both turn to look sharply at him, as if only just remembering he was there.

"And Barton and the other mind-controlled agents," Agent Romanoff says.

"Don't forget my heroic mid-air efforts to restart the helicarrier engines," adds Tony. "Cap helped a little."

"Coulson had a heroic streak, too. That's how he ended up facing Loki." Though Agent Romanoff's voice demands Bruce look at her, when he does, her expression is not unkind. "And you already apologized for the other thing. No more, okay?"

He nods, weakly. "Okay."

"Phil's one more reason we're glad Loki got Hulksmashed," Tony says.

"I'll drink to that." Agent Romanoff picks up her glass, clinks it against Tony's. She only takes a sip, then she says she'd better get back to HQ. "Nice seeing you gentlemen."

"Agent Romanoff," Bruce says, following her out when Tony calls up the Hulk versus Loki video.

"Yes?" She turns back to him as he stands in the doorway, eyebrows raised in an expectant look that makes him feel unsure what to do with his hands.

"I know you said no more apologies but...I'm sorry for your loss. And mine, too, it seems not getting to know Agent Coulson."

She blinks, as if to fight back tears, though he never saw any. "Thank you. That means a lot."

"I know not as much as the smashing."

Agent Romanoff smiles, not at all tentative this time. "See you around, Bruce."


End file.
